Chapter 172: Let's Award the Amphibious Blazefire Dragon the "Most Casually Deceased" Award
The Amphibious Blazefire Dragon ultimately died. It was the most casually deceased of all the leader-level BOSSes Cheng Tian had encountered so far.
However, a post-mortem analysis would reveal that while its death seemed somewhat casual, there were actually quite a few critical factors at play.
Firstly, the strong blinding effect of the Solar Flare was even more potent than imagined, causing almost semi-permanent eye damage to a creature like the Blazefire Dragon, which dared to stare directly at the sun. As a result, its vision remained a complete blur until its death.
This led to the Blazefire Dragon, unable to open its eyes to see, being completely unable to easily distinguish up, down, left, or right in the water. In its panic, it chose to continuously dive in the opposite direction of the Vulcan machine gun and arrow attack sources, completely unaware.
Then there was the open wound caused by Irene's triple arrow penetration. The wound itself didn't inflict much damage, but with the arrows' "healing prevention" effect and the Blazefire Dragon's own frantic diving, it turned into a continuous bleeding debuff.
Expecting a wild dinosaur, whose intelligence and cognitive abilities were at most on par with a purple dragon elder, to understand the principles of internal and external pressure, was as likely as believing Cheng Tian was Qin Shi Huang and giving him 50 yuan.
Relying on instinct and smell, the Blazefire Dragon could roughly locate its lair, but the problem was that the lava cave inside had been sealed by the lake water. The corresponding cave entrance was continuously spouting hot water, like a hot water pipe in a swimming pool.
Actually, at this point, it still had a glimmer of hope: to try and squeeze into the passage, search for air pockets that might still exist inside, and avoid further blood loss.
Unfortunately, Cheng Tian's act of flooding the lava cave had already caused the boiling water to spread into the passage.
Being scalded by boiling water was fine when it had scales, but having boiling water scald its wounds was clearly beyond the Blazefire Dragon's tolerance.
After a while, the Blazefire Dragon, unable to rush into the cave and find a glimmer of hope, fell into a coma due to massive blood loss and floated to the surface belly-up.
Seeing the Blazefire Dragon floating belly-up on the water, Irene initially thought it was a trick and wanted to draw her bow and shoot another arrow, but Cheng Tian stopped her in time.
Because Cheng Tian, through his Light-Dark Serpent Form, discovered that its health bar had already fallen into the red, and it had bled to near-death with the bleeding debuff.
And so, a rather comical scene unfolded next.
Cheng Tian, emboldened, drove his beloved small submarine to the side of the nearly dead and comatose Blazefire Dragon and began to try pushing it. Meanwhile, on the lake shore, the Crimson Tyrannosaurus, War Elephant Mammoth, and Deep Red Carnoraptor, which Cheng Tian had re-summoned because they were out of combat, were all ready.
When the Blazefire Dragon was nudged and pushed closer to the shore by Cheng Tian, they began to help.
The Crimson Tyrannosaurus stood on its toes, stretching its neck, trying to bite the Blazefire Dragon, while the Red Luffa carefully, yet menacingly, bit the Crimson Tyrannosaurus's tail, helping to stabilize its outstretched body.
The War Elephant Mammoth, on its side, wrapped its trunk around one of the Red Luffa's large legs, acting as a second anchor on the shore.
As for the other two "little guys," they could only cheer them on verbally.
In this way, the Blazefire Dragon was dragged and pulled ashore by their concerted efforts. Although they were constantly worried about it playing dead, it never woke up.
This move by Cheng Tian and his team completely cut off any chance of survival for the Blazefire Dragon. Even if it suddenly had a burst of vitality, with two large carnivorous dragons watching over it, it wouldn't be able to escape.
It also avoided the extra step of having to drive the submarine to retrieve the treasure chest if they had killed it in the water.
After a brief discussion, Cheng Tian and his team decided to give it a grand funeral—sending it off with a drill impact.
The moment the drill pierced the Amphibious Blazefire Dragon's abdomen, this dragon beast, which could contend for the title of "Most Pitiful Leader Unit," also suddenly opened its eyes for the last time, and then plunged into eternal darkness, still in its blurry state.
At the same time, a main quest-level time-stop directly occurred at the volcanic lake in the center of the Swamp Jungle. All existence, except for Cheng Tian's duo and their related summons, froze.
Clearly, this was the Space fulfilling its promise, temporarily upgrading the bounty quest to a main quest specification settlement after successfully killing the Amphibious Blazefire Dragon.
And as a team member, Irene also received a main quest specification settlement by association.
[Starting Instance Settlement. (Specification Upgrade)]
[Instance Scene: Dino Crisis (Fragment Erosion), Swamp Jungle Area.
Instance Difficulty: D+ ~ C- (Fragment Erosion Fluctuation)
Bounty Quest: "Officially Permitted Humanoid Tease-Bird" — Solo Quest, submit 5 different types of mutated dragon eggs. Completed √.
Non-Quest Plot Summary: Repelled the Herbivore Dragon Alliance's raid, stole and submitted a total of 14 mutated dragon eggs, killed Champion Unit "Crimson Tyrannosaurus", discovered a hidden cave and completed the dragon egg pick-one-of-three, killed Leader Unit "Amphibious Blazefire Dragon".
Instance Achievements/Titles: I Eat Dragon Meat / Herbivore Dragon Slayer (White), There's a Thief! / Humanoid Tease-Bird (Blue), Flooded Lava Cave / Terrain Destroyer (Blue), Top Predator's Demise / Dragon Overlord's Haki (Purple).
Quest Completion: 100%
Scene Exploration: 55%
Instance Settlement Rating: A+
Instance Settlement Rewards: 7 Free Attribute Points, 2 Free Skill Points, Equipment Enhancement Stone * 3, Water of Styx * 1, Heaven's Chosen Coin 1.5 W (Space Bounty) + 5000 (Bounty Head — Killed Crimson Tyrannosaurus) + 1.8 W (Bounty Head — Killed Amphibious Blazefire Dragon) = 3.8 W.]
[Due to the Instance's fusion and mutation with other fragments, the Instance blueprint has been independently extracted from "Dino Crisis" and given the new name "Adventurer's Dinosaur New Century."]
[Your related experiences in "Adventurer's Dinosaur New Century" have been archived.]
[You have gained 1 opportunity to unconditionally replace a main instance with "Adventurer's Dinosaur New Century."]
[You have gained the qualification to return to Heaven's Chosen Space immediately, or you can choose to go to other areas for exploration and combat within the remaining time.]
[Since it is a temporary, upgraded, main-quest-like settlement, but essentially still a bounty quest, the 'Game Expert' talent will not be settled for now.]
"Roughly speaking, you also completed a main quest, so you don't need to split it with me."
Cheng Tian chose to bring up a sensitive topic, which naturally earned him an international friendly gesture from Irene.
However, the smile on her face was indeed impossible to hide.
As Cheng Tian said, this disguised main quest settlement essentially compensated for her previous main quest failure, making up for some of the missing free attribute points and skill points.
In killing the Amphibious Blazefire Dragon, Cheng Tian's terrain destruction played a huge role, but the penetrating wound she caused was also key to the kill, so the final settlement gave her an A.
And not only did it indirectly compensate for a main quest settlement, but it also granted her a very rare flying mount, which meant her grin couldn't be wiped off her face.
"I'm planning to do a few more things before returning. How about you?" Cheng Tian asked the continuously smiling Irene.
"...Are you going to cause trouble again?"
"Yes."
"What kind of trouble?"
"I'm going to New York to complete the unfinished business of 9/11 in this instance."